Worlds Together Chapter One

Newcrest, Washington

September 23, 2028

"YOU WON'T EVEN TELL YOUR SON TO STOP WHAT HE'S DOING? AM I HEARING THIS RIGHT, MA'AM?" 

...

"YES, MA'AM I'VE HEARD THE WORDS 'CALM DOWN' BEFORE! NOW TELL YOUR SON TO QUIT BEING A BULLY TO MY BOYFRIEND, BEFORE I HAVE HIM TELEPORT ME OVER TO YOUR HOUSE AND RIP YOUR FAKE EYELASHES OFF, TIFFANY!" 

Maria let the memory from five years prior escape her brain as her daughter Annabelle (or "Annie"), a confident teenage girl whose skin was the color of just-pressed olive oil, awkwardly stood in front of her with Tom. All the while, Scarlett was pacing the living room talking into the phone. Scarlett sounded angry, which to Maria was not an uncommon event. This time she was apparently talking to a woman about her son's treatment of Maria's son John. According to the conversation, Scarlett was able to get the mother to confess to encouraging her son to bully John at high school. Through further questioning, it was apparently because John was the most intelligent teenager in the state. 

The conversation from Maria's point of view led to Scarlett mentioning how John was "also at the park that day"; this prompted Maria's thoughts to bring her back to the evening when the teens were children. The evening when the world changed for her, a second time in a row. 

Maria's thoughts were shaken back into reality just as Scarlett stormed off into the nearby restroom while still talking on the phone, closing the door so that it left part of it open afterward. After a few moments of colorful language echoing through the house, Tom carefully walked over and shut the door. 

Annie quickly turned back to Maria after a few minutes of dead quiet. "Anyway, can we go to the park?"

Maria let out abrupt laughter as Tom turned to the laughter of a nearby child with the same alien complexion as Annabelle. When her brain caught up, Maria realized what Annie had asked. She quickly shook her head and looked Annabelle directly into her amethyst-colored eyes. "I told you I have problems with that park. Ever since, what happened to you? You know, as kids?"

Tom gave a short sigh, "Maria, that was a one-time thing, remember? It was either a freak accident or something else. I think Brad Gentry even said it involved aliens, and we all know aliens don't exist!"

Maria gave another, much longer stare directly into Tom's gray eyes, followed by a quick look back at Annabelle with a blank expression as if to say 'YOU chose to date him.' "Alright. You two are old enough to make your own decisions; just don't take your sister with you."

Keera Kethrin, Annabelle's younger sister, sat in the corner of the room, playing doctor with a teddy bear. "I'm okay with staying here, guys; Captain Pickles needs observation. I can't lose him like I did Mr. Berry." Keera motioned towards an eyeless skeleton bear right behind her.

Maria awkwardly turned back to the two and scratched her head. "Yeah, you can go."

Annie squeaked in excitement as she squeezed Tom's hands, and moments later, the two ran out the door and headed off in the direction of the park. Maria walked over to the door and shut it, watching them leave. Tom and Annabelle had known each other for years, ever since Annabelle and family had moved in with Tom's aunt and uncle nearly fifteen years prior. In late 2013, Tom's parents had left him with Elliot and Mei Coen before heading out on a sea-faring trip from Brindleton Bay, North Carolina. Unfortunately, Tom's parents went missing after a few weeks into their trip. A week after that, Tom's cousin Scarlett lost her own parents in a car accident. 

Maria Kethrin, Annabelle and John's mother and Elliot's lifelong friend, moved in with the new unexpected parental figures not long after Tom's parents went missing, and the three adults were able to take care of the four children. The next year, an additional fifth child, Kelly Coen, was born to Elliot and Mei. Ten years later, Annabelle and Kelly found Keera and brought her home, where Maria took her in as her daughter, and a younger sister to Annabelle and John.  

A sudden realization took over Maria as she turned back to Keera. "Wait, where are Mr. Berry's eyes?"

Keera kept playing doctor, and without looking up, she simply said, "Mr. Berry didn't need them anymore since he is just a skeleton now."

Maria shook her head, turned around and walked towards the kitchen. A few moments after, Scarlett emerged from the bathroom. Scarlett watched as Keera kept playing with Captain Pickles, then sat on the floor beside her. 

"Brenda Daniels has been informed that if her son punches my boyfriend one more time, I will legally buy her family home." 

"So has the rest of the house," Keera replied.

    =====================================

"Do you have any reassuring words for our viewers at home? We want to know if your interstellar rockets are safe for the public! Is Project Perigee safe?"

Jack Toomes, the former CEO of ToomesInc., angrily stood next to a field reporter in a large factory district in the Washington town of Evergreen Harbor. The reporter, Everett Jones, ambushed Jack as he walked through one of the public areas in the community.  

"Every unbiased scientist we've asked to consult for our project has deemed the Perigee rockets as safe as humanly possible. I assure you this; despite some setbacks in the past, ToomesInc. is dedicated to public safety."

Everett scoffed. "Setbacks? Public safety? What about the impact at the park?"

"The debris impact at Crestview Park, and subsequent meteorite strikes elsewhere, were allegedly caused by a fault in the test rocket's fuselage. After an extensive investigation, we found the flaw. Since then, we've patched the hardware and software and developed far better rockets for Project Perigee in the past half-decade. Your KT45 News viewers should know that these tests have had zero casualties by now. The Crestview Incident also had no casualties, if you remember.

"That doesn't necessarily help the fourteen injured people who got that way when pieces of your company's prototype rocket crashed into that park."

Jack resisted the urge to punch Everett in the face over something he was still sore over, even after fifteen years. "It wasn't my company anymore by then, and it still isn't. Shouldn't you raise your concerns to my half-brother?"

"Your name is on the company still, Mr. Toomes. And you're the Chief Operating Officer as well. That actually brings me to my next question. People online are speculating that you are planning to use the rockets for Project Perigee to, and I quote, 'attack an alien planet.'"

"That's preposterous!"

Everett smirked a bit before bringing his microphone close to his face. "Is it? For context, they are all bringing up Arrival Day as your motivation."

Jack narrowed his eyes, glaring directly into Everett's own as he balled his fist again, his face turning into a snarl. "Don't you dare-"

 "Bring up Benjamin? The only casualty of Arrival Day was when a distracted driver hit your son. That's gotta be motivation for wanting to launch an attack on a planet; aliens show up above a city for a still-unknown reason, and your boy gets taken out by a truck."

Jack's resistance to punching Everett square in the jaw immediately faded away, and he lunged forward and landed a hit directly in  face, knocking his glasses slightly off. Just seconds later, Everett was being pushed back into his tripod-set TV camera, jostling it around, and he fell to the ground.

Everett stood up and readjusted his glasses. "I'll sue you for that, you son of-"

Jack interrupted him, "If you ever talk about my Benny again, I'll put you in the ground."

Jack turned around, stormed out of the public area, and returned to his facility. As he left, Everett snarled back at him, then smiled when he realized he had caught most of the fight on tape. "Oh, Mr. Toomes, thank you so much. You might turn me into a viral superstar by the end of the week."  

    =====================================

"So, what made you want to visit the park today?" Annabelle asked Tom as the two sat on a bench in New Crestview Park, a fair distance from the city of San Myshuno. "Do you have something special in mind?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to sit with my beautiful alien girlfriend. Wait, she's over there so... I'll just get up and go-" Annabelle playfully hit Tom on the shoulder, and the two went back to looking into each other's eyes, while every once in a while Annie would turn and look at the rest of the people in the park. 

"Do you think people are staring at me?" Annabelle asked, "I mean I know we figured out my whole skin tone thing a while back, but I can't help but wonder..."

"Everyone here should only see you as a normal blonde woman," Tom replied, "but if you insist we could ask. I could yell out 'hey, does anyone here see this beautiful woman as green?' And if they say 'yes', I'd be like, 'whoa you're part of a select few!'"

"No."

Tom and Annabelle laughed, then went back to cuddling on the bench. They spent the next hour talking, laughing, and discussing their life as people walked around the park. Afterwards, the pair stood up and walked around the park itself. 

Annabelle, despite Tom's words of encouragement, still worried if people could see her for who she really was. The feeling gnawed at her as she walked around, as the park grew more and more crowded as time went on. Suddenly, her chest started hurting and she started to have trouble breathing.

   "Annie? Are you alright?" Tom looked over at his girlfriend with a scared look on his face.

"I don't know. Tom?"

Annabelle took in a few deep breaths but the thoughts of people looking at her made her more uncomfortable. Within seconds, she went from laughing and talking with Tom to shaking, gasping for air, then finally blacking out. 

The last thing she heard was Tom yelling her name with increasing worry.

       =====================================

Jack Toomes stepped out of a helicopter and walked with a stern expression into a large building in San Myshuno's Uptown District. The building in question was the home of his half-brother, Robert Matthews, who was in charge of Jack's father's company, ToomesInc. The walk itself felt like a blur, and within a short time he found himself in Robert's home office; a large, sparsely-decorated room overlooking the city. To anyone else, Robert Matthews sitting at his desk would look like a supervillain with plans to conquer the world. Jack, however, didn't think so nicely of his half-brother.

"I got word of what happened down at the factory. Please tell me the COO of my company did not assault a reporter."

"It wasn't my fault, he brought up Benny. He used his name to get to me. I reacted accordingly."

Robert looked up from his computer, taking a moment to address Jack personally while still writing a business letter. "I understand that, but you must understand when you're the face of a multimillion dollar company, you can't be shoving people on camera. You have to handle things more delicately."

Jack growled back at him, "Well then, give me back my title of CEO and I'll sit in this tomb of an office making decisions while you deal with the sniveling rats clawing at your feet trying to make their name in this world."

Robert continued writing. "I don't think the board would agree with you on that. They voted to make me stay in charge, remember?"

Jack balled his fists, but took in a deep breath to calm himself. "Yes. I remember. I also remember when you took advantage of my grief over Benny's loss to steal my company right out from under my nose."  

"After losing your son, you were not in the right frame of mind to run ToomesInc. I loved my nephew too, Jack, but I had to make a decision. The board simply kept me in this position because they liked how I ran the company. It was nothing personal."

"It certainly felt personal to me," Jack snarled.

"Well I'm sorry you feel that way. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about it. Now, let's get back to your actions at the factory: what did the reporter ask you about? What were his questions?"

"He asked about Project Perigee and its possible ramifications. He has this outlandish thought that we're going to be using the rockets to attack alien worlds. I assured him that was not the case. Then he brought up my son and apparently you know the rest."

"That is an outlandish thought indeed. Did he have any evidence of that? Or was it just online speculation? And by chance, did you get his name?"

"His name was Everett Jones, and he mentioned the latter. He works for KT45 News right here in San Myshuno."

"Well it appears he hasn't aired his story yet. I will contact KT45 and see if we can come to an arrangement. This isn't the first story I've had to bury and I know it won't be the last. We're done here, now leave me be."

Jack wordlessly turned around and walked out of the room as Robert turned his chair back to his computer and began typing an email, an angered expression as on his face as he did so.

    =====================================

Screaming thoughts blurred out reality as Annabelle woke up on her couch back home. Tom sat next to her as Maria, a concerned look on her face, felt her forehead. Annabelle weakly looked over at Tom. "What happened?" 

 "I dunno. It looked like you had an anxiety attack at the park. I called your mom and we brought you back home."

"Anxiety attack?" Annabelle looked from her mom to her boyfriend, "what do you think triggered it?"

   Tom shrugged. "Yeah. It might have something to do with the questions you asked me before blacking out. You kept asking me if people could see you as green."

Maria walked up and sat next to Annabelle. "We know people can't normally see you like you really are, so why worry about that?"

Annabelle weakly sat up on the couch, turning to her mother. "I don't know. Maybe because I've been thinking a lot about things like that lately. Other hybrids like me, aside from Keera. Can they see me for me? Can I see them? How does this 'alien sight' thing work?"

"We can talk through that, it's okay, Annie. Let's get you up and to bed, okay?"

Annie nodded as she carefully stood up, turned to Tom and gave him a hug. "Thanks for being there for me."  

Tom smiled as he embraced his girlfriend. "I wouldn't have it any other way."  

When the hug was over, Annabelle turned back and slowly walked away towards her room. Tom sat back down on the couch, closing his eyes in a quiet, peaceful bliss. 

"I've been looking up that exact same thing for a while." 

Tom yelped in surprise, jumping in his seat as Kelly's voice broke the silence. It wasn't Kelly herself that scared him, but instead her suddenly appearing out of nowhere, already on her phone.

"Where the hell-"

"Hey Tom! I was thinking exactly what Annabelle was. What if her psychic alien DNA mixed with human DNA was hardwired to provide some sort of psychic camouflage to change her appearance to other people? That's why only certain people can see her as being green. Only people she trusts subconsciously. It makes me wonder how many of people like her there are out in the world, what type of people they are-"   

"Kelly. Can you talk a bit slower? For my sake?"

"She can see other aliens like her, the same way other people can't see her being green. I don't know how to explain it, but I know it's true. It's my intuition." 

"Wow. Do you think her anxiety attack may have had something to do with it? Do you think there another person like her at the park?"

Kelly shrugged. Maybe, but also maybe your mom was right. Annabelle didn't mention seeing anyone out of the ordinary. Maybe it really was that park, and all those people, maybe Annabelle wasn't ready to go back there after all."

"Makes sense to me."

Tom and Kelly turned mid-conversation to look at Keera, sitting with her Dr. Teddy close by.

"Mr. Berry's parts have been transplanted to Captain Pickles. His memory will be honored."

A confused Kelly turned back to Tom, who seemed just as confused. "Has she been there this whole time?"

Tom looked more confused as he stared into his cousin's blue glasses. "Have YOU been here the whole time??"

    =====================================

Later that evening, a tired Everett Jones walked into his Market District apartment in San Myshuno, failing to lock his door. He put his mail on the coffee table of his living room, afterwards sitting next to his listening device against the back wall of the living room. He took out his phone and dialed a number, whose call went straight to voicemail."

"Hey, my contact from ToomesInc. told me about you. My name is Everett Jones, and I am willing to pay you for info. I need you to find me to look up Jack Toomes and Robert Matthews. Also Project Perigee. I think something's up with them. Call me back please."

The phone flew out his his hand and smacked against the wall as Everett stood up and turned around, seeing a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at him accompanied by a growling voice as he stumbled backwards in terror.

"I'd say next time you should lock your door, but..."

Right outside Everett Jones' apartment, if one were passing by, they would hear screams, followed by an eerie silence before his door quietly opened. A man in a hooded sweatshirt stepped out, locking the door behind him as he left.   

Worlds Together Prologue: tom/annabelle

Newcrest, Washington

October 6, 2023

The late-afternoon sun loomed close the horizon, shining its light on the neighborhood of Newcrest. Within the confines of the neighborhood itself, the busybody population moved about on their evening routines. The school busses had dropped off most of the children  The mail man walked around putting various items in the residents' respective mailboxes. The town crazy was putting fliers on various streetlight poles while talking out-loud about scientists trying to grow a plant monster in the desert. A morning jogger was making her run down down the sidewalk stopping at the end of the street only to turn around and run in the opposite direction when she realized she had stepped a bit too close to a dwelling with a "not-so-good" reputation.

There were stories about the house in Newcrest, the one on the end of the street. Some say they heard strange things as they walked past it; possible voices of aliens and other creatures at all hours. Others would swear they heard the howling sounds of werewolves late at night. Of course there is always a logical explanation: children watching horror movies in honor of October beginning. Still, gossiping neighbors will gossip, and there were quite a few things to gossip about the house full of strange children each with their own interesting personalities. As the old saying goes, "kids will be kids", and the kids at this particular house were as rambunctious as they come. 

The interior of the house itself was typical of a standard dwelling in the area, with perhaps an air of creativity. To anyone looking around inside, it was rather unremarkable especially when compared to the wild and perhaps unsubstantiated rumors about it. Inside the living room, watching television, was an average person, the adult of the household, named Maria Kethrin. Maria was the legal guardian of the children living in the house. Her own two children, Annabelle and John, lived alongside three young cousins: Tom Jameson, Scarlett Keene, and Kelly Coen. 

As the sun drifted lower towards the horizon with Maria standing within the foyer of her house, a yellow school bus dropped four of said children off at the edge of the street. She watched as two of them ran off towards the side yard while the other two stepped closer to the door.

"Where's Scarlett?" Maria asked Kelly and John as they walked through the door, the former dropping her book bag on the rug next to it. "I could have sworn I sent her to school with you two."

John stopped himself from walking towards the kitchen to start his homework. "Detention. She mouthed off to the teacher again. Called her a few choice words she must have learned from those horror movies she watches."

Maria shook her head in disbelief. She knew Scarlett was as hot-headed as her hair was red, anger issues stemming from losing her parents in a car accident when she was younger. "Uh, okay... I'll pick her up at 4:30. Oh and by the way, Kelly?"

Kelly stopped in her tracks, turning around while simultaneously putting on the most innocent grin she could muster. "Yes, Maria?"

"Your teacher called, she said you caused trouble in your own class."

Kelly scratched her head, again as innocently as she could have at the time. "Hey look, all I said was that since we are Generation Z, and nothing comes after 'Z', we might very well be the last generation on Earth!"

Maria loved Kelly like a daughter, but also knew she had an above-average intelligence and wisdom beyond her years. "Kelly, any average class of third graders do not understand nihilism like you do. Look, just go do your homework and... maybe don't read too much into those philosophy books you like so much? I don't want to have to take them away."

Kelly gave Maria a slightly overexaggerated look of anger before shouting "That's not fair!" 

"Hey don't make me take away your telescope privileges." Maria responded back.

"Well that's just cruel."

Maria let out a small laugh loud enough to be heard across the foyer, Kelly's voice bellowed as she said "I heard that so it means I'm not in trouble. Yay laughing!"

"Your parents might want to give you an earful though!"

"Well then, it's a good thing they don't live here!" 

Maria wasn't sure if Kelly sounded disappointed when she mentioned her parents or not. It had only been a few months since they moved away for her mom's work, which at the time Kelly seemed to understand. The eight year old thought of Maria as a mother as well, as she had been around since before Kelly was even born.

As Maria wandered around in her thoughts, she realized she hadn't seen the other two kids since they got home as well. "Wait, where are Tom and Annabelle??"